Happy Halloween!!!!

We awoke this morning with 2 monkeys running straight for the Halloween advent calendar. The Halloween witch has been leaving goodies every morning, but this morning was the finale. Their Halloween baskets were filled with a bunch of non-edible treasures...the witch figured they'd get enough of that later tonight. With silly string in their baskets (the kids have been begging for some ever since they saw it in the store a month ago) we immediately hit the backyard for a silly string fight. They had so much fun!!!

After a gourmet pancake breakfast (Daddy loves his complex pancake batter, so whatcha gonna do?) made with our favorite Halloween pancake mold designs it was FINALLY time to carve the pumpkins. (They've been asking since we got them when we were going to carve them. We scooped the pumpkins out last night so the seeds could start baking...YUM!!! Mr. D LOVED scooping up the seeds. "They're SO slimy!!!!" Little Miss A was a little more apprehensive about getting dirty. Before we could start carving, we hit the computer to find our favorite designs...nothing too elaborate this year. :) Little Man picked out a spider, Little Miss A picked a cat. They were both so eager to help.

Once the pumpkins were ready for the night, we went back in the house to FINALLY make our chocolate cookie Haunted House. No pictures of the creating process...we were all way too sticky for that. :) The kids were much more helpful with it this year. In the years past, I've been the one doing it. The kids are getting so much more independent with our projects in the kitchen. YEA!!! :)

After an afternoon snack of pumpkin seeds, it was time to get ready to head to some friends house in the neighborhood for some good old fashioned trick-or-treating.

(We all can't wait for next year...trick-or-treating on our own street. Not enough people moved in yet to warrant it this year.) The kids had so much fun. At first they were a little too quiet and shy to say "trick or treat" and were needing reminders to say thank you and Happy Halloween, but by the end they had it down. When we got home it was time to check out the loot. They dumped their baskets on the table and starting sorting. They both were organizing all the candy as they searched through...all the lollipops over here, all the sour things over there, chocolate here, etc. (I totally remember doing that when I was a kid, I'll have to ask J if he did the same.)

Anyway, it totally reminded me of Halloween when I was a kid. There are a few major differences in Halloween now and Halloween way back when though....

For starters, we had to just design our own pumpkin carving...no stencils to make it perfect, you had to just get in there, draw it out, cross your fingers and hope it worked. Another thing that J and I were talking about last night is the number of houses that are self service candy stations. (Granted our house is always one of them, since we both go with the kids.) But honestly, I think we could count on one hand the number of houses the kids actually had to say "trick-or-treat." Not exactly the experience we had when we were kids, but they had fun none-the-less. :)

Halloween Treats

With a growing collection of Halloween cookbooks, we had an assortment of menu items every week this month that were just "spooktacular" fun. :) With a little food coloring, fun cut out shapes and a gruesome name anything can become a disgustingly fun treat. The kids got to the point this month where they would just ask "are you just using your imagination?" :)

Halloween Playdate

I picked the kids up early from class this afternoon and raced home to get in costumes. We were finally able to make it one of our MOMs play dates. The Halloween costume party was a blast!!! It had been a really long since the kids had seen any of their multiple friends. They had a blast!!! Thank you much Miss E for having everyone (and the mayhem) in your beautiful home!!! I hope the walls are still standing. There were ton of snacks, crafts and activities, not to mention new toys and old friends that the kids seriously did not want to leave!! What a great way to end a school day! :)

Pumpkin Patch

It was a gorgeous day for a trip to the pumpkin patch!!! We fed the goats, donkeys and horses, then the kids took pony rides. Little Miss A got to ride the white horse that she kept hoping for while we were in line. While we were in line, the kids took their hand at some roping. There was a steel calf in line with a real lasso that kids got to try out. Mr. D took quite a few tosses to "snag" the calf. Little Miss A on the other hand grabbed it her first toss.

The kids loved the picture cutouts. (I think we got pictures with the kids in ALL of them, but the two I included were their favorites.) Our hayride was unforgettable. It was just the 4 of us...we had the ride all to ourselves. The driver stopped at some scenic spots along the way to let the kids get out and play. (The tree climbing picture was one of our stops.) The kids had a blast.

Mr. D was on a mission to pick the BIGGEST pumpkin, when he found the largest one he could carry, he called it good. Little Miss A just wanted a fairy tale pumpkin and picked "the prettiest" one she could find. :)

What an amazing day!!!!

A Game of Strategy

With a game room that will actually hold all of our games in one central location and an organization system that has them far more readily available than they were before, the kids have REALLY been exploring their options with the games we have. This morning I taught them both (one at a time) to play checkers. The majority of the games we play don't really have opponents and never really involve thought out technique. It was so funny to see the difference in strategy.

Little Miss A was aggressive, chasing me all over the board with her pieces. Mr. D, on the other hand, was far more defensive in his play by play strategy, looking up to see my reaction with every piece he was going to potentially put down. Given the difference in strategy, completely offensive vs. totally defensive, it probably doesn't come as much of a shock to hear the reactions to losing checker pieces. Little Miss A just laughed (sweet girl) and tried to get another one of mine, Mr. D pouted with furrowed brow upset that he "was losing". So I'd set my pieces up so that he could take a few in a row to change his outlook on the game. When attempting to play one another, Little Miss A lit up at the chance, D got worried and decided not to play once the pieces were all set up. Maybe next time. :)

Fun Friday

After an afternoon of creating Halloween treats for the evening, we met our school friends at the movies to see "Where the Wild Things Are". The kids really seemed to enjoy the show. They definitely liked seeing their friends not to mention the GIANT tub of popcorn. At one point Mr. D was holding the bucket in a way that had him craning his neck to peer over the top just to see the movie screen. :) I am still hoping we don't have "wild" behavior from our little monkeys as a result of watching the show. (There may have been a couple moments that might have given one of my monkeys in particular some bad ideas.) There is one thing I hope they walk away with a little extra of and and that is the wild imagination... :) What a fun night.

First Word

Okay, not what you think, but equally cool. Little Miss A was on her doodle pad creating her next masterpiece, not an unusual event since she's constantly writing letters and drawing elaborate pictures. But this time she says "Look Mommy!! It says no flowers." Expecting to see a picture of some flowers with a crossed out circle around it, I was shocked to see the word "NO" surrounded by flowers. Clever girl. I love that my little scholar LOVES to write her letters. She is constantly asking how to spell words and writes them down as we spell them for her. She knows all of her letter sounds so she's now transitioning to sounding the words out on her own. :) Smart girl.

The Battle...

Mr. D was totally into movie night. We decided to watch Pirates of the Caribbean and D sported every pirate weapon he owns securely stowed in his belt of choice and of course his pirate hat. He was completely into every battle that came on the screen. His roles changed from Captain Jack Sparrow to Will Turner throughout the entire show. He does the same kind of thing with Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter...brings out all of his regalia and acts out the show for us live while the movie backs him up. :)

National Walk to School Day

In honor of national walk/bike to school day, we took full advantage of the fact that we live so close to school now and walked to school as family today. What a fun treat to have Daddy come to school too!!! Granted the walk will be much more fun when the neighborhood construction is over...there are still gaps in the sidewalk leading to school, but the kids LOVED it!!! They both strolled into class announcing proudly that we walked. The walk home this afternoon got a bit warm. (It is still in the 90s here.) Once we actually have fall temps, we'll be walking more often for sure!

Costume Shopping...

So the inevitable hunt for Halloween costumes began (and ended) today. I hope no one...Mr. D...changes their minds since we can't take them back, but we're done. (I don't think we really had a choice. I say it began today, but really the kids have been "looking" every time we enter a store that sells them. Today was just the first day we went "looking" as a family.

Though I tried to convince the kids that it would be SOOOOO cool if we all dressed up TOGETHER and we brainstormed ALL the possibilities. The Skywalker family was a hit for a while (Little Miss A was going to be Princess Leia, Mr. D was going to be Luke, J would Darth Vadar and I was going to be Queen Amidala...totally cute, right?) We were all on board until last week when Little Miss A and Mr. D bot found "better" costumes in one of their online browsing episodes.

Little Miss A has known since that day that she wanted to be Barbie. We walked into the store and started searching for it, however when we weren't seeing it, she started picking up anything she could get her hands on that was relatively girlie to select as a back up. I was starting to worry that she she wasn't 100% certain about what she wanted to be but then she saw it and lit up like a firefly. She was so excited. I knew that was it. :)

Mr. D, on the other hand is already second guessing his costume selection. He has been ALL over the place on his costume choices since we started talking about it a month ago. He's wanted to be everything from Harry Potter to Luke Skywalker (he was totally on board with that until Little Miss A changed her mind) to Scooby Doo. Pretty big spectrum, right? Well, we walked into the Halloween Store tonight and he bounced all over the boy section from one costume to the next. "I want to be this, no I want to be this, nope, this one. Okay, this is definitely it. No wait, this one." It was crazy. He ended up with a Clone Trooper costume very similar to the one that he got from Little Miss A for Christmas last year and ruined the same day. He looks super cute ad was so excited in the store, but we got home (after several reminders that we couldn't take the costume back and trade it for a different one if her changed his mind) he thought maybe he should have been Han Solo instead. Okay, still within the Star Wars story line, but oh man I'm starting to worry that we jumped the gun on his costume purchase.

It was the worry of what do we do with Little Miss A's costume, it's exactly what she wants, it's it's the right size and it's the only one they have. How do we get her one and not him when he's been the one BUGGING us EVERYday to get costumes. Ugh. We'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I have to note that this will be the first Halloween that my monkeys won't be matching/coordinating. I kind of thought last year was it...especially since that was kind of a fluke thing anyway. :) My babies" are growing up.